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An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue.

Bunking down with Frank Lloyd Wright

Mirror Lake — Looking over the bluff to the milky white strand of frozen lake below, the ice slackening at the center as winter gave way to spring, it was hard not to think about the young man who discovered this perch and whose life ended in heartbreak. »Read Full Blog Post

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Have you ever noticed that most of Mr. Wrights residential creations rot and deterioate. Not much credit goes to him for how he manages to design buildings that don't put up with the weather. 300,000 dollars for such a small building is just crazy. What a waste of resources. Most of Wrights creations are cold, boxie, totaly energy inefficient, and just love to fall down because of their rotting designs. Give Mr. Wright an A grade for that.

'Art is useless' ... is a phrase uttered by a past highschool teacher back in the 70's. Always a troubling concept for me. However the phrase is easily applied to paintings and sculpture. The conflict comes in a Usonian structure.

As Nail bender so aptly puts "...he (Wright) manages to create buildings that don't put up with the weather." Legion are stories of Taliesen and the SC Johnson family home with leaks from rain and dammed up snow. As a designer, parallels are few to FLW, as a technician he has a serious flaw.

Ayn Rand thinly disguises FLW as the character Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead". She celebrates the strength of the individual idea and freedom to express the same. Ms Rand takes chapters to disparage the collective effort as a dilution of the Individual's brilliance and clarity of thought. It is hard to find fault in individual freedom of expression. It can be said freedom of expression is the underpinning of our U.S. Constitution.

FLW and Ayn Rand miss one small element of personal management to have made their offering to the public less Artistic - useless. FLW seriously needed to consider the experience of the roofer. Ayn needed to consult the experience of a Community service provider. Oh but for a small dash of humility both types of art could be saved.

Nail,I agree. His buildings are a testament to his ego and not much more. It's hard to believe he got away with some of the structures they built. Crappy cheap materials where used so he could get more building. There are a few homes that were restored on the southside of Milwaukee last summer. They are in an area where the other houses are much older and didn't need a major overhaul. If he were one of the three little pigs, he'd be the first.

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.